College football coaches have a new tool with which to prepare for the 2014 season - time. The NCAA last fall amended its bylaws to allow up to eight hours of mandatory summer workouts each week, including up to two hours of film study. In the past, any organized summer workouts were supposed to be voluntary, and could only be monitored by the strength and conditioning staff.

Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen, speaking at SEC Media Days last week, said allowing coaches to oversee the workouts boosts the players' effort and allows coaches to get a better grasp of the pace at which their players are progressing physically. "It does increase the intensity level when our guys are on the field," he said. 'We can see the performances they're having out there on the field. Are they training, developing the right way, doing the things we need them to do to get to where they need to get to physically?"

Georgia's Mark Richt, among the biggest fans of the new rule, said it promotes greater accountability in strength and conditioning, which should help players be more physically prepared in August. "It's a player safety issue to make sure everybody is ready for the season to begin," he said.

There are other benefits, as well. "It's great for team continuity and team unity and all that kind of thing," Richt said.

Being able to study film with coaches should be of great benefit to new players, like Alabama's transfer quarterback Jake Coker, who is trying to win a starting job. Tennessee coach Butch Jones said every opportunity to learn is important to teams with freshmen and other newcomers who are going to be expected to play right away. "We're trying to get freshmen ready to play so we're trying to develop them mentally and physically," Jones said. "We're trying to get them bigger, stronger and faster. To take time away from some of your lift sessions to do film study, it's a great balancing act for us. ... But it came at the proper time for us just because of trying to get so many freshmen ready to play."

Richt said the results of the rule change may not only be seen on the field but in the classroom, as well. How? The extra time together allows coaches to emphasize their expectations for their players and boosts accountability, which the coach says extends to areas outside the lines. "In season, if a guy is late to a class or a mentoring session or misses a class or whatever it may be, part of our consequence or our discipline for that is to get him up early in the morning and do some physical work," Richt said. "Go up and down the stadium steps, whatever it may be, push a sled -- a reminder that it's important to go to class, important to be on time, to be prepared. This is your consequence for not doing that.

"Back when there was no accountability at all in the summer, we couldn't do that. ... So I thought it hurt our accountability academically as well."

That said, summer is also a time when players are able to get away from the pressure of having the coaches' eyes on their every move. Mullen said it's important to balance the extra work with down time. "I was wondering what our players are taking out of a July 2nd half‑hour position meeting because they're looking at you saying, 'Coach, I want to get home, see my family for the 4th,'" Mullen said. "[So] we utilized some of the [extra] meeting time right when our players got back on campus, then we'll utilize some of the meeting time near the end."

How the coaches use the extra time may differ, but their goals are the same -- to make sure their teams are mentally and physically prepared for the season. They all seem to agree that the new rule will help them accomplish that.